Frederick "Bosey" Bosanquet was one of ten surviving children born to Samuel Richard Bosanquet, Doctor of Laws, Justice of the Peace (1800-1882), of Dingestow Court, Monmouthshire, the grandson of Samuel Bosanquet (1744-1806), Governor of the Bank of England from 1791 to 1793.
Bosanquet was educated at Eton and at King"s College, Cambridge, of which he was formerly a Fellow (Bachelor 1860, Master of Arts 1863), and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1863.
His mother, Emily Courthope (died 1869), was a descendant of the Plantaganets. With George North. Darby he co-authored A Practical Treatise on the Statutes of Limitations in England and Ireland, his only published work, written in 1867. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1882, and elected a Bencher in 1889.
He was a Magistrate for Monmouthshire and Sussex, and was Chairman of the East Sussex Quarter Sessions.
He was the Recorder for Worcester from 1879 to 1891, and Recorder for Wolverhampton in 1891 and 1900. In 1900 he was appointed Common Serjeant of London, an ancient office first recorded in 1291 with the appointment of Thomas Juvenal, and the second most senior judicial position at the Old Bailey after the Recorder of London.
Bosanquet was the Chairman of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting from 1907 to 1917. As a barrister Bosanquet was based in chambers at 3 Paper Buildings, Temple from 1892.
He was knighted in 1907.
On his retirement as Common Serjeant in November 1917 he was succeeded by Henry Fielding Dickens KC.
